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OPEN LETTER

Co
CARDINAL GIBBONS

PAULSABATIER

AN OPEN LETTER

AN
OPEN LETTER

TO HIS EMINENCE

Catlitnal (§ihhons

APROPOS OF

HIS INTERVIEW ON THE SEPARATION

OF CHURCH AND STATE

IN FRANCE

TRANSLATED
BY JOHN RICHARD SLATTKRY

BOSTON

1908

Copyright, 1908
Sherman, French 6* Company

CONTENTS.

#

PAGE

Note of Translator 3

To THE Reader 6

Preface to the Second Edition 16

Interview of Cardinal Gibbons. 17

Open Letter 31

Notes of the Author 7h

I R' >OQ,^.

NOTE

I

Upon reading the first edition of M. Sabatier's
" Open Letter," the translator felt that in an
English dress it would impart a fair idea of the
status between France and Rome, and with the
courteous approval of the author he attempted it.
In regard to church properties, the reader should
bear in mind that much of the property confis-
cated at the Revolution was sold to parties whose
heirs are to-day staunch Ultramontaines and
just as staunch retainers of their inherited estates.

One word more: It appears to the translator
that no more importance need be attached to the
interviews, statements, addresses of the Catholic
hierarchy, at home or abroad, than is given to the
platform speeches of politicians. Both the one
and the other are inspired from above and have
the same aim. Cicero pro domo sua.

Lastly, it seems only fair to print the inter-
views of Cardinal Gibbons, and it is here given
as it appeared in the Baltimore " Sun," December
14th, 1906.

The footnotes of the author are put together
at the end. They offer very instructive reading,
even apart from the text.

J. R. S.

TO THE READER

About January 7th, 1907, all the political press
P published long extracts from an interview of His
Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, on French affairs.
Thinking that the thoughts of this well-known
prelate might have been misunderstood or mis-
translated, I wrote him asking for the exact text
of his words. In answer he was kind enough to
send me the Baltimore " Sun " of Friday, Decem-
ber 14th, 1906.

Upon the receipt of this authentic text, about
the middle of February, 190'i', the following pages
were written. At first they were not intended for
the public eye, but as interviews, evidently inspired
by the Cardinal's, have since been given through-
out America, it seemed useful to print this letter.

Facts — facts indeed easily verifiable — will be
found herein. On every side it is evident that
those who call upon the French government to
stop the religious persecution have read neither
the Concordat nor the text of the new law and only
from afar followed events in France. But why
hesitate, when a Cardinal sketches dramatically
the abominable tyranny flourishing among us?

Unhappily, the Archbishop of Baltimore him-
self seems to have been led rather by impressions
than by a calm, serene study of the facts and the
documents.

His interview is given on the first page of the
newspaper, preceded by long brackets, within

AN OPEN LETTER

which, after the opening Cardinal Speaks, are j
arranged in capitals, big and little, the following 1
headlines :

DECLARES FRENCH GOVERNMENT IS AC- '
TUATED BY HATRED OF RELIGION.

"CHURCH IS DESPOILED."

SEPARATION AS UNDERSTOOD IN THISl
COUNTRY NOT THE ISSUE.

LOOKS FOR PEOPLE TO RISE.

ACCEPTANCE BY THE CHURCH OF THE
PRESENT LAW, HE DECLARES, WOULD
MEAN THE VERY LIKELY PROSPECT
OF GRADUAL EXTINCTION BY DUE
PROCESS OF LAW.

Then conies a kind of resume, which is here
given in full :

SOME OF CARDINAL'S POINTS.

I. " I am weighing my words, and I say with
deliberate conviction that the leaders of the pres-
ent French Government are actuated by nothing
less than hatred of religion.

I

TO THE READER

III. " Perhaps the feature of the situation that
will surprise us most and call for our just indigna-
tion as Americans is the French Government's ab-
solute disregard for the property rights of the
church. She has been despoiled of the salaries
granted to the ministers of religion as a compen-
sation for the funds which the church relinquished
under that express condition.

III. " In addition, the Jaw of separation entirely
ignores the constitution and laws of the church,
a situation which has no parallel in our American
method of keeping Church and State separate.

>IV. " Should the church accept the present law
she has before her the very likely prospect of grad-
ual extinction by due process of law.
V. " If the separation of Church and State in
France meant Just what it means in the United
States there would have been no such hue and cry
raised against it.

VI. " I have too much confidence in the French

nation • * * to believe that it will not rise

and reject the leaders who are seeking to destroy

religion and bringing disgrace upon the name of

H France."

I

The paragraphs I number in order to tally there-
with my answers in the pages following;

I. To prove hatred of religion, the Cardinal
gives not one fact. He merely alleges words of
MM. Eriand, Jaures, and Viviani. The echo which
the words of M. Viviani, cited by him, brought
sufEce to show how extraordinary they are.

Those of M. Jaures in their original form are un-
attackabte orthodoxy and perhaps it would not be
impossible to find similar expressions in St.
Thomas. Last November (1906) a Roman prelate

^N OPEN LETTER

read at a social gathering a page of a speech, just
delivered by M. Jaures, and drew tears of religious
emotion from many of his hearers.

As to the words which Cardinal Gibbons im-
putes to M. Briand, they were never uttered.

II. This is a mistake. The ministers of wor-
ship drew salaries as State officials. There is not
a single word in the Concordat that offers these
salaries as a sort of compensation in return for
the property confiscated at the Revolution.

III. Another mistake. The Law, being, as it
should be, the same for all the denominations,
could not enter into the details of any particular
organization. But M. Briand declared in the
tribune of Parliament that §4 implies, so far as
Catholic worship is concerned, canonical com-
munion of the priest with the bishop ; of the
bishop with the Pope.

IV. How can this be accepted, when it is
known that the great majority of -the French epis-
copate petitioned the Pope to give a loyal trial
to the new law?

V. Let American Catholics who boast so highly
of their separation read simply the Bull Vekemenler.
Therein they will see that separation is absolutely
condemned. If then the Holy See supports it in
America, it is a toleration entirely forced upon
it and merely provisional. Pius X, who after
having solemnly consulted the French episcopate,
paid no heed to their answers, might also some
day, when his thoughts shall wander beyond the

the^l

TO THE READER 9

ocean, take it into his head to force the same pure
and healthy doctrine in America.

New Orleans, April 23, — Cardinal Gibbons,
replying to a statement by Paul Sabatier, in which
M. Sabatier speaks of the Cardinal as being " so
proud of the separation between Church and State
in America " and recommends him to read the
Papal bulletins " which absolutely condemned it,"
gave out the following interview to-day :

" In arguing for separation of Church and State,
I do not presume to speak for other countries, or
for other conditions. I speak only for my own
country and its conditions, although I may venture
the opinion that, whatever the opinion of the
French Episcopate may be with regard to separa-
tion of Church and State, it would be better for
that country if they could enjoy the real separation
of Church and State as it is in this country.

" I am, therefore, unalterably attached to the
separation of Church and State in this country,
and have always expressed my belief and satisfac-
tion in it. I so expressed myself in its favor thirty
years ago, I did so later on in Rome itself, and I
have no hesitation in expressing the same solemn
belief to-day.

" Indeed, I cannot speak too highly of the pres-
ent relations between Church and State here,
where the Civil Government holds over us the arm
of its protection, without interfering with our
rights of conscience in proclaiming the truths of
the Gospel."

Cardinal Gibbons is in New Orleans to partici-
pate in the bestowing of the pallium upon Arch-
bishop Blenck to-morrow. — New York Freeman's
Journal, April 37th, 1907.

VI. No, France will not rise against her gov

10

AN OPEN LETTER

emment for the excellent reason that it is the
expression of her own will. If she believes it not
perfect, still she judges it is perfectible and in her
eyes that is the main point. She did not believe
that a coup d'etat was in sight because M. Viviani
indulged in a little rhetorical blasphemy. And
when she witnesses acts of reparation for those
blasphemous words, she asks herself why priests,
bishops, and cardinals had not simitar ceremonies,
when a King, Louis XV, the anointed of the
Lord, for whom therefore the church stood
sponsor, was guilty of singularly more regrettable
bad conduct.

No, France will not put aside the ecclesiastical
policy of M. Briand, because she is proud of that
man, who every time he spoke, threw fresh light
on those difficult and delicate questions, and leav-
ing the impression not of a tyrant, who issues a
command that no one has the right to discuss or
even examine, but rather of a guide, a fellow-
worker, opening up to ourselves our nobler part.
We are grateful for his independence in the face of
Rome and we are the more thankful to him be-
cause be flatters no passion, begs no support, and
because his politics flow from a plain, clear view
of things.

It will seem strange, no doubt, for me to speak
of Catholics with so much interest that it might
be thought I am a member of the Roman Church.
Many Protestants and free-thinkers will be scan-
dalized. They will see a contradiction and per-

M-

A

TO THE READER

rhaps among themselves will call me a traitor.
Many Catholics, on the other hand, will answer
roughly that I have no right to busy myself with
the doings of a church, upon whose registers I am
not inscribed.

Nevertheless, I will not hesitate the less in my
position, which desires nothing, affects nothing and
with, as I hope, an acknowledged disinterestedness.
The heart has its own motives for loving that the
reason knows not,

I began by loving the church without knowing
too well why, perhaps the best way to love. I love
her as one loves his mother and country. Were
I disposed to seek some of the reasons for this mys-
terious tie. one of the first would be, without
doubt, the longing for the unity of the church.

I True, it has brought her to commit many blun-
ders and many crimes ; but the dream of oneness,
of unity, summed up so well in the word catholic,
does it not form the prophetic program of the so-
ciety which we wish to develop and towards which,
by various ways but with equal devotedness, the
working and intellectual classes of the nineteenth
century journeyed?

To-day more than ever do I love her, in so much
as now she is a prey to a formidable crisis. Here
I refer not to external and political storms, like
Separation, but of interior and profound troubles.
She is almost in the same moral status as was the
Synagogue half a century before Christ. She has
her sanhedrin, her scribes, her doctors, and her
Pharisees — a whole mass of officials and clients —

1

I
I

IS AN OPEN LETTER

who see only the outside of the structure. They
know the letter and hold that what was good
enough for so many ages, should still suffice. But,
alongside of those elements, at once venerable and
out of place, shunning life as a temptation and a
snare, weeping over the rags and tatters of a sys-
tem that cannot be restored, somewhat like those
bands of Polish Jews who go to weep beside the
ruins of Jerusalem, I behold other ancients who,
like Simeon, scan the horizon from the outlooks
of the Temple, ready to pick out from the crowd
the future Messiah, who comes not to destroy but
to fulfil the past and who will see in to-day's re-
ligion not an error but a laborious attempt well
meant, if unfortunate, towards the Truth.

There are not two Catholic churches ; there is
but one, the true, which is nothing else than hu-
manity, entering little by little into the conscious-
ness of its mission and longing to establish justice.
But there are two kinds of Catholics, the dead,
materialistic, clerical Catholics — and the living
Catholics.

Why, if distinguishing these two large ten-
dencies, should I not point them out? Why refuse
our sympathy, our respect, our admiration for
those Catholics of good will, more numerous than
is supposed, who thoroughly anxious to remain
loyal children of the church, forget not that above
the Pope stands the Credo; above the Credo, the
Gospels and above the Gospels the Individual Con-
'■ science ; that man is not made for the church, but
the church for man ; that her mission is not to fill

nu ^H

TO THE READER

13

I

I

him with sighs and make his days upon earth a
sort of exile, but rather to fit him for duties, for-
ever new, and burdens ever more glorious? Such
suffer a severe trial, but as one of them has well
said : " The tempest scatters more seed throughout
the world than it uproots trees."

But what must be thought of their opponents,
those Catholics who cry out for liberty with so
much violence at the very moment when, in order
to down their brethren, they have recourse only to
intimidations and pressure.

Ideas are not killed with the blows of a stick.
The day, too, is gone when history can be made
out of falsehoods. Let the splendid unity o£ views
on the part of the French episcopate be held up
before us as much as any one pleases, it will de-
ceive neither Pius X, who had all the documents
under his eyes, nor the bishops, who will scarcely
forget the painful discussions brought on by the
clash of two opposing views, nor the public above
all, which smiles quietly and asks itself why so
much mystery if there is nothing to hide.

The French crisis is much more imposing and
tragic than is gathered from reading the burning
words of Cardinal Gibbons or the Encyclicals of
Pius X. These leaders see only the shell, political
and ecclesiastical. They seem not to grasp its
huge religious import. Is it this ye are gazing
at? might Jesus repeat.

It is not the process of the French government,^
which unveils itself before our eyes; rather do we
witness the manifestation of a certain idea of re-

14

AN OPEN LETTER

ligious authority. Ecclesiastical authority, should
it or could it refrain from entering into all the
magnificent palaces which come across its path,
where men, well meaning now and then but with
little sense and more often interested, beg it to take
up its abode?

To all those parties who ask of it a politii
dogma, a social dogma and even perhaps a literary!
or artistic dogma; to all such faithful as demand
miracles, should it not answer by exhorting to un-
ceasing labor. "Seek and ye shall find."

Is not Pius X in danger of forgetting that Jesus
Himself was tempted, and that his real enemies
are not they who persecute but those who come
to him with marks of respect and reverence. " If
thou art the Vicar of God, show thy power. Is it
not written that the gates of Hell shall not pre-
vail against thee?"

Behold the real crisis.

Assisi, Holy Thursday, 1907.

dd^l
he'H
:h, '

■ith

ake ^J

ary]^H
md^H

un- ^^1

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Hardly had the first edition of this work been
out, than the base as well as the details of my argu-
ment were found confirmed to the letter by the
publication of the Montaguine papers.

Whoever has studied these documents has seen
that the great majority of the French Episcopate
favored a loyal trial of the law of separation and
they labored strongly but uselessly to restrain the
Holy See to a Tolerari posse.

It is evident that at the very moment the Holy
See condemned the law under the pretext that it
would give to the laity a high hand over the
church, its own stand was inspired by laymen like
MM. Piou, Gross eau, Costa and others known
only to France by their hatred for democratic
ideas.

Up to the present. His Eminence, Cardinal Gib-
bons, has not answered me. But others have
spoken, while the Osservatore Romano, la Civilta
Cattolica, la Riscossa de Bregansa, to mention only
official or quasi-official journals, took me in hand.
I received sympathetic messages from priests,
whom I knew not even by sight perhaps, but in
whose hearts it is an infinite honor for me to find
no matter how small a corner. I shall add noth-
ing on so many pages, burning, sad and soul-stir-
ring, which I have read and re-read with heartfelt
emotion.

AN OPEN LETTER

k

Let all those unknown friends accept the ex-
pression of my thanks. Why should I not send it?
It goes forth with special sympathy and admiration
for the isolated ones of the Abruzzi, of the Basili-
cata, of Provence and Du Berry.*

" He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with re-
joicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Ps. 126.
V If it suits the Ecclesiastical authority to ignore the
crises through which Italian and French Catholi-
cism in particular is passing and to persuade itself
that peace reigns in the church and in conscienC'
it is not we who can lead it to a change of views.

The main point is that no heart bows to its
troubles and despair takes hold of no soul. If for
many months, every day brought a fresh stroke of
authority, every day also heard the echo of a new
voice calling out with unconquerable firmness a re-
ligious truth, which would prove a spiritual food
easy to take in a Vatican, as it were, for our
generation.

Following hard after the priests, whose mouths
were to be closed, rise up the laity, whose pen
not be broken. The methods taken to stop the
Rinnovamento of Milan, and the sober answer of
its young editors to H. E., the Cardinal, Arch-
bishop of Milan, mark a red-letter day in the
history of the Church.

Assisi, May 30th, 1907.

I

INTERVIEW OF CARDINAL GIBBONS

AS PRINTED IN THE " BALTIMORE SUN "
OF DECEMBER 14, 1906

17

CARDINAL SPEAKS

DECLARES FRENCH GOVERNMENT IS AC-
TUATED BY HATRED OF RELIGION.

" CHURCH IS DESPOILED."

SEPARATION AS UNDERSTOOD IN THIS
COUNTRY NOT THE ISSUE.

LOOKS FOR PEOPLE TO RISE.

ACCEPTANCE BY THE CHURCH OF THE
PRESENT LAW, HE DECLARES, WOULD
MEAN THE VERY LIKELY PROSPECT
OF GRADUAL EXTINCTION BY DUE
PROCESS OF LAW.

SOME OF CARDINAL'S POINTS.

" I am weighing my words and I say with de-
liberate conviction that the leaders of the pres-
ent French Government are actuated by nothing
less than hatred of religion.

" Perhaps the feature of the situation that will
surprise us most and call for our just indignation
as Amercans is the French Government's absolute

so

AN OPEN LETTER

disregard for the property rights of the church.
She has been despoiled of the salaries granted
to the ministers of religion as a compensation for
the funds which the church relinquished under
that express condition.

" In addition, the law of separation entirely
ignores the constitution and laws of the church —
a situation which has no parallel in our American
method of keeping church and state separate.

." Should the church accept the present law she
has before her the very likely prospect of gradual
extinction by due process of law.

" If the separation of church and state in France
meant just what it means in the United States
there would have been no such hue and cry raised
against it.

" I have too much confidence in the French na-
tion + * + to believe that it will not rise and
reject the leaders who are seeking to destroy re-
ligion and bringing disgrace upon the name of
France."

I
I

" The American public does not understand the
present crisis in France," said Cardinal Gibbons
when asked last evening for his opinion on the
French situation.

" I am getting to be an old man now and I think
I know my countrymen. They love fair play ; they
love liberty; they love to see humane dealings of
man with man. And the late years have shown
how cordially they hate injustice, tyranny and
inhumanity.

" And yet France has treated her noblest citizens

with injustice and inhumanity, and America, which

has sympathy for the oppressed of all nations, has

\raised no protest nor uttered a word of sympathy.

" If I believed that my countrymen would know-
ingly see a great and beneficent organization un-

THE CARDINAL'S INTERVIEW

31

justly deprived of its property and the means of
continued usefulness; would knowingly see tens of
thousands of honest men and noble women robbed
of their just income and means of support; would
knowingly see hundreds of thousands and even
several millions of people brutally wounded in
what they hold dearest and most sacred ; would
knowingly see a majority in the chambers utterly
disregard and trample upon the rights of the mi-
nority and the rights of millions of their country-
men — in the name of liberty ; would knowingly see
tens of thousands of men and women — who happen
to be priests and nuns — turned out of their homes
for no crime but that of loving God and serving
their neighbor — I say if my countrymen can see^
and recognize all this injustice and tyranny and
cruelty and refuse genuine sympathy to those who
suffer by them because of their religious belief,
then I will leave life without that faith in American
love of justice and liberty and humanity which has
been my comfort and support and hope during a
long career.

HATRED OF RELIGION.

" But the American people have not had these
things put fairly before them. Our own press has
been to a considerable extent the reflex of the
Parisian anti-clerical press. Most people over here
have little conception of the French anti-clericals.
They look on the leaders of this party as enlight-
ened statesmen seeking to preserve the republic
from the attacks of an aggressive clergy.

" There have been honest and sincere lovers of
republican government among an ti -clericals I ad-
mit, but the majority of them have far less love .
of the republic than they have hatred of religion.

" I am weighing my words, and I say with de-
liberate conviction that the leaders of the present

AN OPEN LETTER

French Government are actuated by nothing le!
than hatred of religion,

" We have no spirit akin to theirs in this coun-
try. We have here much indifference to rehgion,
but we have no body of men, no great party that
malces it a chief aim to weaken the power of re-
hgion and if possible utterly to destroy it out of
the land.

JACOBIN PARTY STILL LIVES.

" But in France the Jacobin pai;ty is not dead.
Their spirit is as living to-day as it was in the
last decade of the eighteenth century ; they hate
God, they hate Christ, they hate His religion as
much as ever their fathers hated them.

" But they have learned a more prudent and
measured method of attack. They are almost
/ scientific in the means they take to suppress Chris-
tianity. And yet the utterances of such men are
L received as unsuspectingly by many Americans as
would be a discourse by Mr. Cleveland or Mr.
Roosevelt or Mr. Taft — men who recognize the
powerful influence that religion has in promoting
the welfare of society.
" It is easy to show that I am not misrepresent-
ing the spirit of anti-clericals. They make no
secret of their hatred of Christianity. They avow
it in the press and in the chambers,
" Let me give you a few examples of the lan-
guage of these men and you can judge if the Amer-
ican people have ever heard anything similar from
their own leaders, or if any American statesmen
would dare to utter such statements.
of

1

QUOTES SOCIALIST LEADERS.

' In the course of a long speech in the Chamber
of Deputies the well-known Socialist leader,
Jaures, said:

" ' If God himself appeared before the multitudes

I

I

THE CARDINAL'S INTERVIEW 83

in palpable form, the first duty of man would be
to refuse Him obedience and to consider Him not
as a master to whom men should submit, but as
an equal with whom men may argue.' /

" M. Viviani, the new Minister of Labor, speak-
ing also in the Chamber of Deputies, gave utter-
ance to these sentiments:

" ' All of us together, first by our forefathers,
then by our fathers, now by ourselves, have been
attached to the work of anti-clericalism and irre-
ligion. We have snatched the human conscience
from belief in a future life. * * * Do you
think that the work is at an end? No, it is but
beginning.'

" The Chamber decreed that the discourse from
which this extract is taken should be placarded in
every town and village of France.

" In the same strain the present Minister of Pub-
lic Worship and the most strenuous advocate of
the law of separation, M, Briand, said in an ad-
dress to school teachers:

" ■ The time has come to root up from the minds
of French children the ancient faith which has
served its purpose and replace it with the light of
free thought; it is time to get rid of the Christian
idea. We have hunted Jesus Christ out of the
army, the navy, the schools, the hospitals, insane
and orphan asylums and law courts, and now we,
must hunt him out of the State altogether.'

" What would we Americans say if a Cabinet
officer were to propose this as the great aim of his
administration ?

SWEET WORDS; BLOODY DEBDS.

" For some reason the sentiments of the anti-
clericals are not reproduced by our papers. But
let a French statesman utter counsels of modera-
tion and sentiments of liberty, when he wishes to
check his followers and prevent them from foiling

AN OPEN LETTER

his plans by too great haste and zeal, then his fair
words are spread before the eyes of our people.
They are taken as the expression of wisdom and
fair play.

" For a spinner of beautiful discourses, breath-
ing humanity and justice, the French demigod can-
not be surpassed.

" It is a common observation of historians that
in the most bloody seasons of the French Revolu-
tion the air was full of sweet words about fra-
ternity and liberty, coming from the very men
who made the streets run with blood. These
men and those who inherit their spirit can talk
more divinely and act more diabolically than any
other on earth. They do not, of course, want
bloodshed now, but the spirit of hatred exists in
them just as strongly.

CONFISCATION AT REVOLUTION.

" In order to understand the present situation
it must be borne in mind that before the French
Revolution all churches, all ecclesiastical lands
and properties belonged to the church by as just
a title as property is owned in our own country
by the Catholic, Methodist or any other religious
^ denomination.

" At the Revolution all buildings, landed prop-
erties, funds, etc., were confiscated by the revo-
lutionists. But the injustice of this was soon rec-
ognized, and the Constituent Assembly publicly
and solemnly pledged itself to render some sort of
justice to the church by giving for the support of
the clergy and the maintenance of worship an
annual budget. This amounted to a little more
than 1 per cent, on the values appropriated by the
^ State.

" Let it be remembered, too, that this act of
quasi-justice took place 12 years before the Con-
cordat between the Holy See and Napoleon

THE CARDINAL'S INTERVIEW

rThe payment, therefore, of the clerical stipends
was not dependent simply upon a Concordat, but
was a recognition of a just debt owed by the State
to the church for appropriating funds which had
been producing a revenue for the support of the
^m clergy and the maintenance of worship.

I

" The present conflict dates back to the year
1880, when a large number of religious houses
were closed by order of the Government and their
occupants dispersed and forced to seek religious
liberty in the land of the stranger.

" From that time scarcely a year has passed
without some annoyance to the church — a series
of petty acts of discrimination that were bound
in the long run to call for a protest. The protest
came in the form of a personal letter from Pope
Leo Xni to President Grevy, in May, 1883, which
was answered courteously enough indeed, but the
answer was a mere waste of time and paper so
far as results were concerned.

" In spite of the Pontiff's reasonable objections
the injurious laws were passed. As far as possible
God and religion were banished from the schools
and hospitals, the oath deprived of its religious
character and clerics impressed into the military^
service,

LAW OF ASSOCIATIONS.

" Next, in 1901, the law of associations was
passed — a law which, as interpreted and executed
by Combes, caused untold misery to thousands.

" Ey it the schools in charge of religious associa-
tions were forced out of existence. The members
of the different religious congregations, not only
male, but female as well, were sent forth, cast out
upon the world and obliged either to eke out an ex-
istence as best they could in their own native

S6

AN OPEN LETTER

France or to go into exile. Many of these were old
men or old women who had spent a lifetime within

the convent walls, and were now driven out, no
longer able to begin a new career and with no
means of support.

CONCORDAT DISSOLVED.

" Finally, in December, 1905, the Concordat was
dissolved and separation of Church and State
proclaimed.

" It is essential to bear in mind that the Con-
V cordat was a genuine contract, and that this con-
tract was annulled by one of the parties, the
French Government, with no regard to the wishes
of the other party. The Sovereign Pontiff was in
no wise consulted, and utterly ignored in every
stage of the proceedings.

■■THE CHURCH DESPOILED."

" Perhaps the feature of the situation that will
surprise us most and call for our just indignation
as Americans is the French Government's abso-
lute disregard for the property rights of the
church. — She has been despoiled of the salaries
granted to the ministers of religion as a compen-
sation for the funds which the church relinquished
under that express condition.

" We say it not in the heat of passion, not as
partisans, but simply as lovers of justice.

" What should we think if our own Government
had seized on the friars' lands in the Philippines
without giving any compensation, or after having
pledged solemnly a compensation should afterward
refuse to keep its part of the contract?

" Furthermore, suppose the American Govern-
ment had left to the Filipinos merely the use, and
not the ownership, of their churches, and only
under conditions laid down by itself, and even that
their very use was liable to be revoked at any

r
I

THE CARDINAL'S INTERVIEW 37

'■ WITHOUT

In addition, the provisions of the new law
{law of separation) entirely ignore the constitu-
tion and laws of the church — a situation that ha&.
no parallel in our American method of keeping
Church and State separate. Here there is due rec-
ognition of the laws governing every lawful so-
ciety, while under the recent French law provisions
are made for organizing Catholic worship without
any proper reference to the duly authorized
ofiicers of the church — the bishops and priests.

PROSPECT OF EXTINCTION.

" This is the point to which the Holy Father
has objected most strenuously. The provision for
associations of worship (associations cultuelles)
opens the way for schmisraatical organizations,
which have, in fact, in a few cases, been already
attempted. It places the church at the mercy of
the judgment of the Council of State, whose de-
cision in these matters is final.

" Should the church accept the present law, she
has before her the very likely prospect of gradual ^
extinction by due process of law. She has learned
by long and sad experience to place no trust in
the promises of the French Government. She
knows the spirit that animates it.

" She remembers that M. Waldeck-Rousseau
was ready enough to interpret liberally the law of
associations ; but his successor, M. Combes,
showed himself by no means willing to follow in
his footsteps. The law of separation, if accepted,
will inevitably lead to the destruction of religious
liberty, just as the law of associations led to the
destruction of religious congregations.

5 DIFFERENT.

" If the separation of Church and State in France
meant just what it means in the United States,

88 AN OPEN LETTER

there would have been no such hue and cry raised
against it. Very likely to many it would have been
by no means undesirable.

" But the situations are not at all analogous.
In proof of this we have only to point to the fact
that on several occasions some of the leading
French Catholic Deputies bluntly put the question :
' Why do you not give us separation of Church and
State such as exists in America ? '

" The real nature of the separation has been well
expressed in these words of a French priest :

" ' The Concordat might be compared to a con-
jugal union in which the state represented the
husband, the church the wife. To-day they are
separated, but the separation has simply consisted
in the husband banishing the wife from her home,
keeping all the fortune for himself and preventing
her from acquiring any other by managing him-
self the little income which he allows her to gain,
and likewise in exercising a jealous watch over all
her words and actions.'

GUISE OF TYRANNY.

" It is not separation alone, therefore, that the
Holy Father is repudiating, but tyranny in the
..^ise of separation. Hence it was imperative upon
him to resist,

" For the last 20 years and more the policy of
the Holy See and the French hierarchy has been
one of patience and conciliation. It was with the
deepest regret, only after all his conciliatory
measures had failed, that the Pontiff at length
found himself driven to a course of passive
resistance.

" In choosing this course the Holy Father did
not run counter to the opinion and wishes of the
French Episcopate. A canvass of the situatioa

tioa_^H

I

I

THE CARDINAL'S INTERVIEW

has shown that the vast majority of the bishops
were with him, and all, without a single exception,
have accepted and obeyed his decisions.

" Nor were the French clergy at all behind their
leaders in manifesting their loyalty. Last summer
at the gatherings of the clergy in almost every dio-
cese resolutions were taken to be forwarded to the
Sovereign Pontiff expressive of their gratitude and
loyalty.

SVMPATHY OUTSIDE FKANCE.

" This feeling has not been by any means con-
fined to France. The bishops of England, Canada.
Italy and other countries are in full sympathy with
their brethren in France and have not hesitated to
give strong expression to their disapproval of the
unjust law.

" In our own country on the occasion of the cen-
tenary of the Baltimore Cathedral a message of
encouragement and sympathy was forwarded to
the French hierarchy in the name of the bishops
of the United States, In this we expressed the
hope that the Catholics of France might soon enjoy
the religious freedom accorded their brethren on
this side of the ocean.

EXPECTS RENEWAL OF FAITH.

" For myself I have too much confidence in the
good of the French clergy, in their high-minded-
ness, their zeal, their courage, their readiness to
suffer and to sacrifice themselves, to believe that
they will tamely allow religion to be strangled in
France, and I have too much confidence in the
French nation to believe, now that they can see
and realize the meaning of the measures taken and
the animus of those behind them, that the natural
feelings of justice and humanity and the love of
liberty will not arise in their hearts and lead them
to reject the leaders, who, in seeking to destroy '

30 AN OPEN LETTER

religion, are bringing disgrace upon the name of
France. And I have too much confidence in God
and his protection of the church not to feel en-
couraged to look for a renewal of faith and religion
in France.

" The view of the case as I have given it is based
en the facts and the documents; we need only
leave it to an impartial and liberty-loving people to
decide which party is responsible for the present
miserable conflict." -

AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS EMI
NENCE, CARDINAL GIBBONS,
ARCHBISHOP OF BALTII4ORE

81

I

H Un

AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS EMINENCE,

CARDINAL GIBBONS, ARCHBISHOP

OF BALTIMORE.

Your Emnence:

Kindly allow me to express to you with respect-
ful simplemindedness all the sorrow I felt upon
reading your appeal to American public opinion
apropos of the separation of Church and State in
France.

Of course, it appears not out of place to see the
Catholics of the entire world taken up with our
country and following very anxiously the steps in
a crisis, which every day seems more novel and
serious. Hence, when, on May Ist, 1906, Your
Eminence, in the name of the American Episco-
pate, wrote to Cardinal Richard, expressing sym-
pathy, esteem and best wishes, no one among us,
as far as I know, raised his voice to criticise that
mark of affection. And yet, your letter was not
only severe upon our Government, but it showed
that its author — in speaking of official Atheism —
was greatly deceived, as much in regard to the
spirit and letter of the new law as also in regard
to the mind of our parliamentary majority. "^

Now, in your latest ringing interview, you no
longer seem to body forth your sympathy with the
church of France, but rather to stir up against
French Government and Parliament opinion in the
United States. Now this is a serious fault on

34

AN OPEN LETTER

the part of a man filling so elevated a station and

who adds to his declaration all the emphasis pos-
sible in saying: "I weigh my words." If the
slate of affairs in France is so harmful to Cathol-
icism, is it not strange that you waited longer
than a year before making this indignant protest?
That you allowed so long a time to go by would
be understood, if the law once at work had proven
filled with pitfalls or had been carried out in a
■"hateful, tyrannical spirit. Now, just the opposite
is the case, and our Government has not ceased
from interpreting it in a straightforward, liberal
way.

Since your latest interview is not the outcome
of a more patient study of documents and facts,
it becomes needful to seek its cause elsewhere and
to feel that the Archbishop of Baltimore allows
himself to be drawn by a rush of international pro-
tests, too harmonious in time and text, not to ap-
pear somewhat artificial and inspired. The law
has not changed since the day when a gentleman,
whose high authority, I trust, you recognize,
Count d'Haussonville, said of it:

"After all, it is liberty, for hereafter Cathohcs, a»i
such, can unite and own, that is, can rejoice
essential rights. » • * Why, then, go on repeating
that the Faith will meet with great dangers in France
from the day the clergy cease to be paid by the govern-
ment and the bishops to be nominated by the Minister
of Worship? Such talk astonishes me, for it shows little
confidence in the Church's vitality."

I take the liberty to recommend these words J

«

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS 86

of that illustrious Catholic writer to your consid-
eration, as also the pamphlet from which they are
quoted (1),*

A plain Frenchman, who loves his smalt coun-
try, France, and our large country, the Church, I
feel myself forced to tell you how deplorable are
your grave and solemn words, since they are cal-
culated to create in those who depend solely upon
them entirely wrong ideas about that which goes
on among us at this moment.

Somewhat like those Spanish paintings, all lights
on one side and all darkness on the other, the pic-
ture you draw for us wins the eye and gains notice.
For you the light is America, where the Church
has nothing to desire. France is the obverse dark-
ness, where perverse and diabolic minds are sov-
ereign masters, poisoning the air and lording it
over the elect, whom they hold captive.

There is no harm in the United States of Amer-
ica appearing to you as an earthly paradise, and
hence I am happy for your country, towards which
as to 3 great sister, beloved and admired, turns the
whole of France, except a clerical minority, as
noisy as they are few (3),

The more, however, this opposition of light and
darkness is insisted upon, the more interesting it
becomes; so much the more sober and judicious
minds regard it as necessary not to accept it, as
the true picture of the real, without careful proof.

Behind every one of your statements is hidden

* For all nolea, see Appendix.

a kind of plea to those who govern France, I
to the Roman Church the liberties it enjoys i
America. Very handsome and very easy, to be
sure. Too much so, in fact, for therein, permit me
to tell you, lies the great blunder, which spoils all
your expose : You forgot to tell your readers how
\the Catholicism of the New World differs from
that of the Old.

You speak of the Catholics of France as though
by good luck they were the great majority.
Neither you nor myself, Monseigneur, can know
the relative number of the faithful, to whom
Catholicism is a religious life and only such. But
what you should know as well as myself — and I
regret it as much as you — is that for a long time
the enormous majority of those who in France
have spoken in the name of Catholicism have been
clericals. If you wish to be fair to our legislators
and our Government, it would be well, when ad-
dressing your fellow citizens, to begin by sketching
with quick and happy pen the portrait of that
strange sect, more political than religious, which
in Latin countries attempt, too often successfully,
to constitute Catholicism.

You are aware that in France these temple traf-
fickers have almost everywhere invaded the sanct-
' uary and terrorized the clergy (3).

Why will you not address them ? Why not de-
nounce them as the shame and open sore of the
Church? The day when France will find herself

the presence of a Catholicism emancipated from
im, be sure that no effort will be needed to

^m

I

3?

give it liberty, and far from combatting it France
will welcome it into a universal society filled only
with religious aspirations as the incarnation of her
dreams and her genius.

Is it not unfortunate that after having said that''
separation in America means liberty, while in France
it spells tyranny, you did not regard it as a duty
to strengthen this statement by examples and
proofs ?

My perfect ignorance of American legislation
permits me not to give a correct statement of the
immense superiority it offers in this matter. I be-
lieve I may, without impertinence, ask if your in-
dignation, added to that of so many bishops of
Canada, South America and Spain, led you not to
condemn in France the very thing which seems to
you natural and even glorious in America.

The point upon which you insist most vehe-
mently is that disputes which might arise in the
Worship Associations would be settled by the
Council of State. This is true. Would it be so
frightful? I wish to think not; for, in fact, your-
self, Monseigneur, in your letter of May 1st,
1906,* say that in the United States such dis-
putes are settled by the civil tribunals. In laying
them before the Council of State, our law puts
them before the highest tribunal of our land. '
How could this be bettered? Would you wish
us to carry them to Rome? If such is your
thought, I trust you will explain it to us and

• Letter to Cardinal Richard.— Tr«n»l«tor.

AN OPEN LETTER

show how in this point — so important-
law differs from your own.

Another note of this leit motiv running from one 1
end to the other of your views, and by its simplic-
ity and unity at once its beauty and its danger, is
the notion that France might now be the victim (
of God's enemies. It is not, however, easy to un-
derstand how atheists — that is, people who admit
not the existence of God — can hate a God who in
their eyes exists not.

True, in speaking of Jacobins and of the hatred
of religion, you follow only the forms of language
in use among most Catholic organs on this side
of the ocean. These think it well to keep up the
ways of training of those mothers who, in order
to keep their children from wandering away into
the depths of the garden, tell them: the devil is
hidden behind those trees. Soon the day dawns —
sooner than is believed — when the child knows
that there is nothing behind the trees and loses all
trust in his mother's word. If, on the contrary, he
still believes her, the outcome will be no happier,
for when grown up he will not cease to fear men
and nature and look around for snares and demons.

Is it unfair to suppose that if Latin Europe has
so many sceptics, so many helpless, so many lax; if ^
it is inferior to the New World, this is due in part
^t least to such deplorable upbringing?

France may have atheists, but they have not 1
dreamed of elevating their opinions into official
doctrine. To grant them such aspirations, we must

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS 39

believe that they carry " Arriere-pensees " and are
liars and hypocrites. By what right do we think
Better inspired, indeed, was that humble,
brave priest (the Abbe Lemire, member of Parlia-
ment), who had the courage to declare from the
tribune of the Chamber of Deputies that he be-
lieved in the sincerity of those who declare that
they wish to make the law of separation a law of
liberty and deliverance as well for the Church as
for the State.

The clericals have been silent on this memorable
speech of the Abbe Lemire (4). That a priest
could be cheered by the French Parliament and
n from the benches of the deputies who call
themselves Catholics, is a fact fatal to that picture
of our national congress which is at times spread
abroad. Silence followed that speech and at times
I would love to believe that it was not a studied
silence. But journals, anxious to win respect and
consideration, should not too often relapse into
such sort of forgetfulness.

With what a wealth of telegrams has not the
scattering of the seminaries been told ! Now in
omitting to add that it was simply a question of the
State taking over properties belonging to it, upon
the public was impressed the conviction that re-
ligious education was at stake and the formation
of the clergy hindered. How forgetful not to
add that to-day throughout France the seminaries
are freely reopened in new houses. So well was
it done that strangers coming among us are as-
tonished to see nuns, priests, monks going about

40 AN OPEN LETTER

peacefully and the religious services kept up
in the past.

I hold no brief for France, but I feel assured
that if you cared to raise the issue, you would
find it difficult, with the exception or some un-
worthy priests or some apostates driven by a mys-
tic fury against their past, to discover among lay-
men any of whom you might say that they are
\ led on by hatred of God.

"The violent sectaries who long for the destnictioB.
of the Church and of all religion are in France but «
very small minority."

Permit me to apply this opinion to your state-
ments, Your Eminence. It comes from no friend
of mine; it is that of Father Abt, S. J. (5).

In asking you to judge the present crisis more
fairly and calmly, a task is proffered not beyond
the powers of a prince of the Church, A priest,
whose character is as well appreciated by you, I
trust, as at home, the Abbe Felix Klein, published
some months ago a work in which he knew how
to point out with much tact the state of mind at
present in France. This well-known professor at
the Catholic Institute of Paris thought not that
^~tiis love for the church made it a duty upon
him to ignore or despise all that lives or seems
to live outside of her (6).

That Holy Mother teaches that in the next
world there will be heaven, hell and purgatory.
I take it that she impresses upon her children like
views of this world; that she teaches them that
most men. Frenchmen even, are neither saints nor

1

I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

41

r devils, that they are children of humanity, and if
to attain its heights depends upon their own ef-
forts, this victory also has need of the prayer, love*^
and help of the Just.

I

It must be granted. Your Eminence, that the
stand you believed it a duty to assume in the
present events has pained your friends in France,
so much the more as they had counted upon the
disinterested help of the American Episcopate as
leading to peace.

We fancied the distance that you are from Rome
and from Paris would enable you to follow the
affair with an impartiality not to be expected of
those in the thick of the fight. We were hoping
that standing above the daily fracas, the petty
skirmishes and combats, you would grasp the main
lines of the controversy and instead of seeing in
it a disaster and an anguish, you would turn your
eyes and ours also to the future with its glorious
vista of duties and cares. The term separation of
the Churches and tlie Stale is wholly negative and
taken alone would give a false idea of the crisis.
From the standpoint of the Government, the ex-
pression holds, for it states, indeed, the mark
which the greatest fact in modern Christian evolu-
tion will leave upon the State registers. Let not
then the official language mislead us. A birth is
also a separation. Now it is a birth that we-^
witness; the bringing forth of a new civilization.

Those who attack the new law with the cry of
Liberty! Liberty! seem, indeed, not to understand

iz

AN OPEN LETTER

that our fathers, in proclaiming freedom of con-
science, laid down a principle whence, in a future
more or less distant, would surely issue the separa-
tion of the Churches and the State. For, from the
moment that the State protects one or more
churches, the liberty it leaves to the rest is not
y^Tue liberty. It is only toleration.

The question of church property fills a great deal
of your interview. Have you, perhaps, too hastily
likened the ownership of churches in America to
that in European countries?

Our clergy protested loudly against returning its
property to the State — a return they might have
hindered and a great majority of the Episcopate
wished to prevent by accepting the law, as we
shall see further on. And yet they seemed less
anxious than you, Monseigneur. This relative
moderation arises from the fact that they know
perfectly well that church properties belong to the
clergy in pretty much the same way as the pre-
fectures belong to the prefects or the Louvre
Museum to its Board of Administrators.

As long as the church was part of the public
service, it should enjoy the same privileges as the
rest of State officialdom. But if. as authorities on
the subject assure us, the number of French Cath-
olics are not more than three or four millions, it
is perfectly proper that the places, given them
when ten times the present number, should relapse
to the State.

It is right also to reply that a large part of

t oi^H

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

Ecclesiastical properties come from gifts and lega-
cies, made by persons who wish explicitly to main-
tain Roman Catholic worship. Now, just as the
purchasers of a cemetery lot in perpetuity know
very well that it is not absolute, so the dying, who
leave donations to certain works, should realize
that after a period long or short, their wishes
would be forgotten. The day the Church gained
the victory over Rome, she made no scruple in
taking over the Pagan temples, which surely were
not built to foster the worship of the Galilean.
These latter days, our land is filled with preachers,
very eloquent, indeed, who love to expatiate upon
the words " The stones will cry out." Winding
up, they point to the stones of the church of the
National Vow, Montmartre, covered with initials
and inscriptions, and protest indignantly against
the profane intruders. It was a grand stroke, yet
in spite of the preacher's evident emotion, the
audience listened calmly. Perhaps they fancied
that the cry of the stones is a plight of the soul
and that at Rome the plaint of the Pagan inscrip-
tions, far from troubling the worship of the Chris-
tian intruders with the nasty cries: "Away with
the robber," mingled itself discreetly with the
liturgy in order to chant: Christus vincit, Christus
regnat, Christus imperat.

Behold doubtless why, when the journals, the
self-styled pious, published the most wicked insin-
uations against the Government or the Parliament,
public opinion was in no wise affected. For well
it knew, even in the smallest hamlets, that of rob-

AN OPEN LETTER

bery there could be no question, when properties,
belonging to no particular person, were set aside j
for the benefit of the poor or for works of public J
usefulness.

—Is it not strange, furthermore, that the Church
holds a perfectly Pagan notion of property, and as
firmly as though it were a principle which needed
only to be laid down? Would it not be better if
she sought her practical teachings among the ex-
amples left her by so many saintly souls, of whom
she is rightly proud?

St. Francis of Assisi declared that it was not
right to sing of worthy knights when the heart
was lax. Would be not be shocked to hear his own
praises chanted by men who would let loose civil
war in France in order not to lose properties which
they earned not by the sweat of their brows?

" It is not every day that there is offered to Catholics,"
wrote M. Pierre Jay, "the subHme chance of presentiag i
the other cheek. Behold it now offered after a centurj J
of quiet. Will they know how to profit by this favor id I
order to reconquer the world in renouncing it?" (7.)

Is it claimed that the new legislation is perfect! I
Not a single politician can be found who thinks so, [
and fortunately our legislators make no pretence 1
to infallibility. Perhaps their work would have J
left less to be desired if the most interested parties, j
viz., the clergy, had shared in its preparation. Un-
luckily, they allowed themselves to be carried 1
away into a policy of obstruction. They wereJ
ignorant of the law. They listened neither to the I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

46

advice of prudent men who pleaded for a settle-
ment, nor the voice of the saints who preached
the forgiveness of offences and the love of
enemies.

The clergy stood apart and thus acted exactly
opposite to what the American clergy would do.
Once more this shows you how unjust it would be
to compare the attitude of our respective govern-
ments without first stating the contrasts in the
conduct of the clergy of both lands.

Of course, the law is not perfect, but its base
will remain, for it responds to a profound change
in the trend of public opinion in our country. A
political defeat might lead to a temporary halt, per-
haps even to a reaction. But such a result would
have that indefinable superficialness and vague-
ness, shown by every regime which had hoped to
uproot in France the principles of the Revolution.

Generations follow one another and are not alike.
The hot-headed religieuse who call upon the church
authorities to resist obstinately the French, re-
minding them that after 1793 came 1802, seem to
forget that if the Concordat made peace between
the Church and the State, far from being a victory
for the church, that treaty was in reality the ac-
ceptance by the Papacy of a whole part in the
conquest of the Revolution. Thus far, no results
have followed from the tactics of the clericals, who
have not stopped from making every effort to lead
the Government into the same pitfalls as in 1793.
If, as far as the Government is concerned, they
are stranded, they have been more successful

46

AN OPEN LETTER

among Catholics. They have brought it about that '
many minds are beset with violently bloody fig-
ments together with a chronic state of nightmare.

Perhaps it would have been better for the glory
of the Carmelites of Compiegne, if their beatifica-
tion had not seemed a by-play in these childish
schemes.*

You assure us, Monseigneur, that the Jacobins
are not yet wiped out. The opposite would be
wonderful ; permit me, however, to tell you that
between those of our day and their forerunners
lies a great difference. The latter, born under
Louis XV, were brought up almost to a man upon
the church's knee by the Jesuits as tutors-t Those
of our day have been reared upon the knee of ]
France, and excepting enough to prove the rule i
they have no taste for persecution. Neither for ]
them nor for France do I regret this, but I feel
very sincerely for a host of flaming prophets, alt j
of whose predictions and calculation it serves to I
upset.

r the juillollne

I ot France foi I

the fir

St half of the

eighteenth

centu

ly. Id 1764,

tlie order

thruM

forth from Ih,

them an a

of the

bitlereit enemi

« that Chri

itianil

ly hai ever hii<

1 To do tl

justice

, they were dei

ai which they

hid Ihemae

supplied. The intellii

gence which

they

had developed

and sharp<

turned

inevitably aga

,inBt the inc

urabl,

'. fault! in the

ir own .yn

{Critic

al Miscellaniei

, by John

Mori

ey, "Coudore

et." Vol

p. 167,

,)— TranslMor.

I

I

If for many months, the words, in large capitals :
Religious Persecution in France have been
used as headlines in religious Journals, not a sin-
gle fact has happened to justify the charge of re-
ligious persecution. Have the majority in power
at any time decreed dogmas to which the minority
had to submit? Have they condemned and forbade
to their fellow citizens certain beliefs? Such a
spectacle would not be new in France, but when
we have referred to it, you know as well as I who
were then in power.* Men not yet fifty years old
can recall the day when Protestant soldiers had to
genuflect when the Blessed Sacrament was pass-
ing. Is there anything similar in the new law or
even in the conduct of Parliament? (8)

True, the reproach is brought against the law
of separation, and it is one of your chief sorrows,
that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is ignored. It
is creditable, however, that if you had read in their
fulness our parliamentary debates and not biased
resumes of them, you could not have made such
a charge.

In fact, in §4, it is enacted that the new wor-
ship associations shall be created:

"In conformity to the rules of general ordinance of
the worship whose exercise they propose to carry on."

It is no secret that the general ordinance of Ro-^
man Catholic worship includes the hierarchy and
it was furthermore announced that the authority of
the hierarchy was recognized in that text. (9)

] the masMcre oC St. Bartbolomew snd
of Nantes. — Translator.

r OPEN LETTER

And yet this prevented not Pius X from declar-
ing that the law ignored the hierarchy. Absorbeti
by the notion he has framed to himself of the men
in power in France, he has turned a deaf ear Ui
every voice raised to warn him of his error.

A number of Catholics, aroused at the prospecl
of the huge misunderstanding which was growing
between France and Rome, addressed to him a
bold appeal. They found themselves the butt of
the vilest insinuations of the clerical press, because
they had written anonymously. And this they did
in order to leave their ideas work of their own
strength without any fear that their origin might
add to or detract from their weight. (10)

What, however, at Rome count the most vener-
able and weighty names ? Evident it became when,
December 7th, 1906, Cardinal Lecot, Archbishop of
Bordeaux, and Mgr. Germain, Archbishop of Tou-
louse, took the steps needed in order that their
cures should make the annual declaration for the
maintenance of worship. (11)

The next day, December 8th, Rome obliged
them, under threat of being treated as schismatics,
to forbid their cures the very counsels they gave
them the day before. (13)

Whoever will study these facts would doubtless
find it hard to say that the condemnations issuing
from Rome repeat only the unanimous wish of the
clergy of France and that the annual declaration
implies a submission forbidden by conscience.

Here, as throughout the whole crisis, Rome
seems to have in view above all else not to impart

r

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

49

I

light, but to have its own way and to shut out'
every individual initiative. It is not a strife fruit-
ful of ideas to which we are invited; the chief

thought seems to be that it is question of a war
only to end in wiping out the enemy.

But, permit ine to add, Monseigneur, there is a
danger threatening the Church worse than separa-
tion, worse than all possible persecutions. It is, it
in spite of the publicity of our parliamentary de-
bates, priests, bishops and pope, turning their eyes
from the reality, would judge the deeds, words,
and the men from the pictures drawn day by day,
in a hateful press, which seems to have undertaken
the task of misleading the views of Catholics in
order to provoke them. (13)

In the long run, nothing can withstand facts-
The church is rather easily pardoned for having
created legends, not always disinterested, in order
to nourish the childhood of our civilization. She
is forgiven for having so well unlearned some
things, which to-day could not be called by their
right names.

The best means by which Rome may recommend
to us her metaphysics and her dogma would be,
doubtless, to maintain an implacable severity to-
wards herself in whatever regards the modest
statement of facts and the perfect correctness of
language.

For a long while nothing could be more just and
more straight than the attitude of the French Gov-
ernment. When its language has been wrongly

50 AN OPEN LETTER

•explained, this has been done only by enemies.
Can as much be said of the Holy See?

That august authority speaks only when it
wishes, and looks not upon it as a fault to take its
time before proclaiming its decisions. And yet
when these decisions are known, everybody, friend
or enemy, is at sixes and sevens as to their mean-
ing and bearing.

If only the impious and infidels had misunder-
stood the orders of Pius X in the Bull Gravissimo,
it might be alleged that their malice had changed
the sense. But it is known that Catholics in the
closest touch with the Holy See, like the unbe-
lievers, thought that he accepted recourse to the
common law. Such a general mistake by all read-
ers as to the meaning of a document, issued to
mark out a line of conduct, is a fact of special
importance.

In sheltering himself under the common law,
Pius X was keeping an attitude, correct, simple,
and perfectly dignified. But in compelling Car-
dinal Lecot to contradict himself and in rejecting
with so much brusqueness the very common law
to which he turned for shelter, Pius X has led im-
partial observers to feel that he is led by a child-
ish, hasty obstinacy; the hardheadedness of a child
N who knows only that he will not yield.

******

I will not give much time to the contradictions
and errors that can be found in your statements.

You have imputed to M. Briand words about
uprooting from the minds of the children of

1
I

SI

' France the old faith, of chasing Christ from the
army, the navy and the schools, which he never
uttered. The denial was at once given to you; I
insist no further upon it, save to point out that it
cut away the main prop of your argument.

As to M. Viviani's words, the enormous re-echo
they make is sufficient to show how unusual they
were. While looking upon them as being as much
out of place as theatrical, still I cannot understand
how intelligent men can so strongly call for the
freedom of their own faith at the very moment they
are pouring out floods of anger against the faith —
or the lack of faith— of a fellow citizen, as is M.
Viviani,

You may not know that some days later, his
colleague, M. Louis Passy, taking advantage of his
temporary filling the presidential chair, spoke of
God before the National Assembly with the ac-
cents of an unimpeachable Catholic orthodoxy. In
perfect courtesy the chamber listened to him.
They, whom you call the enemies of God, dis-
turbed him not, and sat quietly while the Right ap-
plauded. Furthermore, at the session of January
9th, 1906, M. Paul Bourgeois, deputy of La Vendee,
in his turn presiding, launched forth in a long
speech entirely religious in trend, in a fashion,
whose opposite M. Viviani seems only to have fol-
lowed.

Does it not seem to you, Monseigneur, that
Catholics should respect the unbelief of Atheists, if
they expect the latter to respect their own faith?/
Think you that in America you would enjoy full

and perfect liberty, if you proved yourselves i
able to respect the liberties of the " Sects,"
matter how fantastic.

Such an act of hard common sense is too mucli I
as yet for the mental power of many French Cath-
olics, and not later than a few Sundays ago in
Paris they wrought much evil in disturbing an
archiepiscopal mass, which they were perfectly
right in regarding as schismatic, but which it was
their duty to leave alone.

If this attack on liberty had been the work of a
lot of street arabs, I would not think ot noticing
it, but the leading Catholic journals, specially la
Croix, far from denouncing it, endorsed it by their
favorable reports.

Allow me to quote a few lines from La Croix e
Card, February 10th, 1907 :

" The sacrilegious mass of the prelate ended so and n
At the close, the indignant Catholics renewed their prd
tests, and during the address of the schismatic prelaMJ
sang to the air of the Mascot a ribaldry, of which c
verse is here given:

n Un vieux singe d'Am^rique
« Debarque de Chicago
(( Vient benir la Republique
a Des cambrioleurs legaux.
II Ah I n'nous troublons pas pour ca,
(I On le chahute, on le chahutel
(lAhl n'nous troublons pas pour C3>
« On le chahutera. u

Such, Monseigneur, are the journals in FranccJ
which speak in the church's name, and every yeai
receive the apostolic benediction.

Another mistake, which I venture to point ouffl

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

S3

I

^ fin

to you briefly, is what you say apropos of church
property, viz.: that in 1803 it was turned over to
ihe State on the expressed condition that it would
go to support the clergy. The Concordat has no
such expressed condition. By Article 13, the Holy
See " for the sake of peace and the happy re-estab-
lishment of the Catholic religion " agrees never to
disturb the holders of church property. In Article
14, the Government of the Republic guarantees a
proper support to the clergy. There is, however,
no connection between the two articles and the
words cited from Article 13 show that the Pope
accepted purely and simply the results, and there
was no question of a rent in perpetuity due by the
State to the Church.

But, however serious the matters to which here-
tofore I have had the honor of calling your atten-
tion, they are much less than the great error you
fall into by your silence as to the immense blessing
secured to the Church by the new law — liberty.
A liberty which she never had even in the days
when she was on top, respected, or should I say,
pampered, by the civil power. Before even the
new law was passed, the rupture of diplomatic re-
lations between the Republic and the Holy See
gave to the Church two essential liberties, two, in-
deed, which she had never enjoyed under any
regime in France, the liberty of ecclesiastical nom- ^
inations and the liberty of meetings. (14)

The Pope hastened to take advantage of the
first, and since the days so many ages ago, when

64

AN OPEN LETTER

St. Gregory sent St. Augustine and his troop of "

bishops to England, there never was seen a similar
ceremony before the ApostoHc Chair.* In their
turn, the bishops were as hurried in naming cures
to all the vacant parishes. Thrice, finally, the
French Episcopate enjoyed the second liberty by
holding their meetings, when they discussed in
perfect freedom every question they had at
heart. (15)

Now I dare ask respectfully of you, Your Emi-
nence, can a Government which day after day gives
to a body, as strongly organized as the Church,
such liberty, be likened to I know not what sort of
tyrants, who carry in their hearts the hatred of
God and His Church? J

How do the inconveniences of the law stand ■'
alongside of these freedoms? Is it not evident
that if our rulers were such as they have been de-
scribed, they would have taken precious care not
to annul a treaty which by allowing them to name
bishops and pastors kept in their hands a rare ,
means of bondage.

The more it is supposed that the French Gov-
ernment wishes only to make war upon religion,
the more wonderful is the fair dealing, of which it i
has given proof in renouncing the influence secured ]

ope enjoyed in G9S as regards I
berty in 1906 as regards France,
r Vireilius of Aries in 59T. Late
I consecrate twelve bishops for

lat St. Gregory consecrated St. j
. He refers to the liberty
ngland and the teaewa! of that

I

I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS 56

by the Concordat, over the Church's desti-
nies. (16)

It might also be clear to thoughtful people that
the Pope's haste to make use of the advantages of
the new situation created a sort of tacit under-
standing that he would accept its inconven- ^
iences. (17)

So trite are all these considerations here put be-
fore Your Eminence, that the entire French Epis-
copate, when acknowledging the Encyclical Veke-
menter, began with a solemn hosanna and welcomed
" with an unanimous outburst of thankfulness the
hour when one of its dearest liberties was restored
to the Church of France."

In thus speaking [May 30th, 1906,] and placing
the ptean of victory at the forefront of a solemn
address to the Holy Father, Cardinal Lecot, Arch-
bishop of Bordeaux, and along with him the
French Episcopate, proclaimed to the whole world
the happy results naturally following from the new
law. (18) True, indeed, later on, in response to
the Encyclical Vehementer, " a true monument of
wisdom both human and divine," so they styled it,
the bishops condemned the false principle of the
possible separation of Church and State; but this
condemnation is in theory and affects America as
well as France, and cannot be taken apart from the
subsequent deliberations.

Now it is just this that the Holy See hesitated
not to do. In the Bull GraiAsstmo, Pope Pius X,
passing over this declaration of principle on the
part of the Episcopate with a simple reference, left

AN OPEN LETTER

France and the whole world ignorant that this
opening statement, which was a kind of platonic
compliment to an impossible ideal, was followed
by discussions, long and serious, when most of the
bishops proposed various practical solutions.

If by 73 votes against 3, the assembly con-
demned separation, it is but the truth to add that
by a vote of 48 against 36 the bishops favored an
understanding. Finally, they submitted to the
■■^-Holy See statutes in harmony with the Civil Law
without harm or hurt to Catholic doctrine. This
settlement, offered by Mgr. Fulbert-Petit, Arch
bishop of Besanijon, was carried by 56 votes
against 18.

Allow me. Your Eminence, to remind you of the
amazement which spread over France when, on the
publication of the Encyclical Gravissimo, it wasj
known from disclosures that no one dared denyj
how greatly differed what had passed at the meet-
ing of the bishops and what was contained
Encyclical apparently. Regrettable it is, that
words wounding the dignity of the Holy See were
uttered. Would it not have been better to have
safeguarded that dignity by the Pope speaking so
clearly that his words might be understood with-
out affording those who knew not the facts a
chance to believe the very opposite of the truth?
This astonishment, so evident among us, passed
into all lands where our debates had been followed
with some interest. To-day it almost seems for-
gotten. But history never has a short memory.
Behold, then, the great majority of the Fren^

I

nch^H

61

Episcopate, knowing the profound changes which
are the outcome of the trend of ideas among our
people, while in theory opposing separation, were
ready in practice to counsel the acceptance of the
law.

On their part, the cream of French Catholics had
anticipated this acceptance in a letter (19) signed
by men whose names had long been known beyond
the ocean; in the first place by Ferdinand Brune-
tiere, Denys Cochin, George Goyau, Anatole
Leroy-Beaulieu. Thureau-Dangin, the Marquis of
Vogiie, the Count d'Haussonville, George Picot,

I

Do you think that all you say of oiir new French
legislation, the perverse account you give of our
Parliament and our Government, leaves it possible
to poorly informed readers to realize that this fa-
mous law was, upon mature reflection, accepted in
a way by the clergy as well as by the eminent lay-
men above mentioned?

Let me add that the above was endorsed by the
popular vote. You are not unaware that the gen-
eral elections to Parliament took place last summer
(1906), and they resulted in an extraordinary vic-
tory for the deputies who favored separation.
True, Mgr. Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster,
hesitated not recently to state that the elections
in France might not have offered a correct notion
of opinion because of the ease with which the Gov-
ernment could bring pressure upon them. And I
can hardly understand how insinuations so grave

68

AN OPEN LETTER

could have been reproduced cheerfully and without
protest in a number of French journals (January
rth, 1907).

To demonstrate the injustice of such accusations,
it is unnecessary to remark that, freedom of the
press in France being unlimited, the Government's
enemies had ways without stint to pour out their
complaints ; but strangers who would doubt of the
general honesty of our elections need only make
a simple reflection in order to make their minds
easy-

In a large country, which are the sections the
Government puts on pressure most effectually?
Surely, there where education has least penetrated
and where the resistance of individuals to the State
y is least certain. It was so under the Empire and
Royalty; in the most backward cantons the Gov-
ernment won its chief victories. To-day the roles
are reversed. It is in the mountainous districts,
where flourishes intellectual and physical misery,
the Government met its most violent opponents.
The Right was not deceived ; well they knew that
in order not to receive a sure defeat, one of its
leaders, M. Piou, who had even received from
Rome a kind of canonical backing (30), chose to
be elected in one of the most uncouth, most un-
cultured and most ignorant of our Departments,
viz., Lozere.

Is this known in America? We should say not;
for if you were aware of it, you would judge us
quite differently. Know you that since 1870 the

r

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

I

I

Clerical party have not stopped attacking all our
liberties? At first, like Frenchmen, they struggled
above board; but once they savif they could never
thus destroy them, they turned to crooked ways
and crafty means, till finally they became a hybrid
group, made up of the refuse of all tyrannies and
self-called Action liberals populaire.

In a large number of dioceses the Ecclesiastical
machinery was in the eyes of the electors the fos-
ter parent of the Action liberate. The result was
what it should have been.

Throughout the whole land, there was a hearty
uprising against the hypocrisy of the candidates
and a warm anger against the priests who had put
at their service their sacerdotal influence. Among
us one sin is never forgiven — hypocrisy. Too
often alas, the men who pretend to represent the
Church without the slightest protest on her parf
have amazed the country by the ease with which
they deceived opinion or strove to deceive it.

Ceaselessly is it said that the Church is indif-
ferent to the diverse forms of government; but un-
fortunately the clergy, who from 1803 to 1870 had
astonished the country by their faculty of adapting
themselves to every successive regime during those
two generations, all of a sudden surprised every-
body by their radical inability to accept the
Democracy.

Under Leo XIII, there was a rally ; but consider-
ing the attitude to-day of those who obeyed then
the brilliant directions of the Pope, it must be
granted that either his instructions had no sense

60 AN OPEN LETTER

or bearing, or that they who accepted them saw hi
them only a dextrous move destined in the end t
swallow up the republic.

The Church is not dead in France, but she hai
exhibited a moral and social incapacity, from which '
she can free herself only with great difficulty.
What the conscience of the country, be it that of
the brainy men or that of the dullards, demands of

^her is that she be a school of morals. To this call
she has not answered.

She understood not the voice of the public con-
science, demanding of her to crown personal moral-
ity with a civic and social morality. What, also,
perhaps, caused her to lose the most of her power,
is that she has stood by while her representatives
lay in wait for universal suffrage in order to cor-
rupt or destroy it. Never has she been known to

/ undertake in good earnest her own improvement.
What would make her lovable and strong in our
day would be if, as a rule, her members were mo^^g
ally better than others. Whereas, in fact, theiri
chief characteristic in the eyes of their fellow citi<J
zens is that they think and act as if the advance c
thought had been held up some six or seven cei
turies ago.

Finally, these men, who stand up so stoutly foi
tradition, have a very special way of looking ad

^ it. Their religious traditions retain the prophetsJ
but exclude the prophetic spirit; retain the Go»-|
pels, but shut out Gospel faith in the future
Specially they count upon extracts from thtj
Fathers, separated from their context, splendi

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

61

^H flowers, no doubt, but dried up in a framework

^H formed of scholastic treatises.

^M In national traditions even, these Catholics

^P make selections and would like to wipe out cer-
tain periods. Willingly they oppose the sons of
St. Louis to the sons of the Revolution, as if the
latter were not our grandfathers as the former
were our great grandfathers! On the other hand,
French democracy, without canonizing any page
of the past or blotting out any, turns more will-
ingly to the future, not so much in order to fore-
see it as to prepare for it.

Behold, Your Eminence, some points which
must be taken into account in order to understand
the present crisis. Say to your countrymen that
French Catholics have too often deserved to be
called " strangers within the gate " because of
their indifference to questions over which every-
one around them is eager and wrought up. Tell
them that because of their dreaming about super-
natural and miraclous virtues, they seem to forget
the greatness, the beauty and the holiness of
manly work and human effort. Say to them again '
that a large portion of our higher clergy have not
yet learned to stop casting into simple souls the
germs of the strangest misunderstandings in con-
trasting with the Gospels the principles of 1'I'89
and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. (21)

I Tell them that too often they pass their days
in useless regrets and know not how to observe
all that is grand and consoling in the present hour.
They understand not the profound revolution

which is working its way in the mind and heart
of the country nor the immense progress already
wrought in steadfastness of character.

France is not what she would like to be; she
dwells upon what is wanting to her, rather than
upon what she has ; and this feeling is new enough
among us to be worth the while to refer to it. Is
it necessary to add that I speak of that which
is lacking to her from the spiritual and moral
standpoint? Materially, alas, she feels as much as
ever the wounds of 1870, but recalls it rather as
^a wound to her self-love than as an error she re-
grets as much for the sake of the victor and his
allies as for her own. She ceases not to think of
it, but without hate or anger, and wants neither a
war of revenge nor to forget it. What, then, is
her wish? Would she expect a miracle? No
longer.

Highminded and at the same time modest, re-
served and also resolute, she realizes that the day
has dawned for mankind to take a new step to-
wards peace among the nations. She desires peace
firmly, not from weakness or closeness, but be-
cause wars are become to her both wicked and
foolish.

The duties of a citizen towards that vast family,
known as his country, are also among her chief
matters of reflection. Conscious is she that her
answers to them, especially since 1870, have noth-
ing trivial and passing in them.

Far from the love of country seeming to entail

«

I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS 63

necessarily hatred of the stranger, she sees in it,
on the contrary, the first step and readiness to a
still more comprehensive love.

Now in these thoughts that engross her atten-
tions, in these dreams she cannot shake off, France
had hoped to have the Church at her side to direct \
and encourage her. This juncture came not.

That venerable mother of our civilization under-
stands not what ts going on in the hearts of her
children. On seeing them absorbed in a dreamy
longing with their eyes gazing out beyond the
horizon, she no longer grasps the pure or manly
in that gaze. She would arrest their growth and
keep them at her side as babes forever.

A gross deception it is to behoJd in the present
crisis only a dispute between the Holy See and
the Government of the Republic. Step by step,
ecclesiastical authority has turned in upon itself.
Disdaining always to answer every request to ex-
plain, it frequently strikes with the spiritual and
temporal rods, frightfully so at times and then
again ridiculously. (33)

The Church is not cut off from among the liv-
ing; but she seems to have undertaken the task of
breaking every tie by which men act and counter-
act upon one another.

Try, Your Eminence, to make up a list of all the
ecclesiastics of France whom you know, specially

I of those whose works you have profitably read,
and say honestly if such a list tallies not almost
to a dot with the lists of suspects or banned, issued
by the Roman Congregations.

G4

An open letter

What I have said to you aloud, is carried in the i

hearts of thousands of priests, as well as of a large
part of the French Episcopate, among whom are
they who would have expressed it all with an elo-
quence and a power of love and sorrow that my
words carry not. You well know that if they have
not done so, it is because the Episcopate have no
right to speak other than to applaud the Holy
Father. Was it thought that when Papal Infalli- I
bility, restricted indeed to questions of faith and 1
morals, was defined ex cathedra, that some thirty
years later there would come a sweet pious Pope,
who would act as if the Pope were infallible at
all times and upon all questions, as though he held
within himself the entire thought and the whole -I
life of the Church?

Our bishops deliberate, but in darkness and in j
silence. How do you fancy lay France feels about 1
all this mystery? It knows well that it is not J
enough to hide behind bolts and bars and de- I
voutly recite the Vent Creator, in order to receive J
all the light needed.

The legends of Christmas and St. Nicholas are
told to boys of fifteen years. To-day without any
shadow of doubt, we know that if the most ven-
erable assembly of the world — to which you be-
long — deliberates under the Eternal Eye, it also |
ponders under eyes more earthly and less disin- '
terested. If the secrecy of the Conclave of 1903
was not disturbed by the Roman populace pouring
in, external influence knew how, by ways that are
dark, to successfully penetrate it. Its secret

TO CA

ilNAL GIBBONS

now known to us ; a secret in no wise to anybody's
credit. Would that the Church put aside ways
that make her appear out of joint with our times.
Would that she announced, not in empty words,
but with all her strength, that if she has the truth,
she keeps it not hidden away in a coffer as a treas-
ure, acquired once and for all, whose key she alone -^
holds, but that she has truth in the measure in
which she finds it and finds it in the measure in
which she seeks for it.

Let her do this and without renouncing an iota
of the past, and she will find herself at once jour-
neying alongside of the France of to-day, which is
taken up, above all things, with every work of dis-
interested intellectual effort, of love, of solidarity.

Whosoever speaketh of the scepticism of our
country, make it clear that they see only its sur-
face. True, upon all sides are numbers, who have
renounced the Bread of Life, which up to now the
many churches offered to them. Far from this,
however, being a proof that they no longer wish
for spiritual food, it rather shows that the nour-/
ishment given of old suffices no longer. (33)

What our people expect from their pastors is
that they witness to the moral law, that they adorn
and enrich life in explaining its meaning, and that
from the pulpit are heard not only doctrinal and
metaphysical truths, but that it above all imparts
a word of sympathy and love for all that is good.
Now, however, under the pretext of strengthening
them against the devil and his snares, nearly all

AN OPEN LETTER

the pulpits of France are rostrums, whence Sunday
after Sunday is preached hatred.

Many who go not to Church are reached by the
journals for which she is responsible. Look at our
religious press and say, if in styling it empty and
hateful, it is judged too harshly. Now, bear well
in mind that the work of the journals of Paris
is spread by the efforts of countless local papers
which also extend the evil. Excelling in the art of
calumny, they insinuate the vilest falsehoods ; how-
ever, with such vagueness as to escape the courts.

What must be the state of such minds, who
fancy that God, Christ and His Church, are served
by such falsehoods and libels? What must be
thought of an ecclesiastical authority, implacable
against errors in doctrine, but has never a word of
reproach against those who poison their fellow
men with such morals? A great shame is it, Mon-
seigneur, which has turned from the Church more
Christians than one would suppose. (24)

There remain faults to fall into, and come they
will. Ecclesiastical authority is neither at its first
nor its final error. At this moment it is its own
judge, nor will this prove the least outcome of the
present crisis.

Certainly I believe not in breaking off unity; I
hope strongly, on the contrary, that the unity, ex-
ternal and official, of to-day will be transformed
and find its fulfillment in becoming the union of
wills toward a common effort.

Henceforth, Rome will follow still the old ways

ay ^M

I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

67

I

k

of so many human authorities, already vanished or
about to vanish. It will keep on refusing to permit
itself to be discussed, and will continue to prepare
in the dark, decisions which at times will give
light unexpectedly and at other times exhaust the
patience of the most resigned; decisions, always
peremptory and absolute, but never destined to
become the torch to light up with its translucent
beams, like God's sunlight, the path of the sinner
as well as of the just. Now and then it will vouch-
safe some signs, but as they would appear unim-
portant, Rome will impart them now so vaguely,
again so elusively, that they will only answer to
something far indeed from the simple truth and
might even be likened to falsehoods.

Some days ago was published a declaration,
signed by the unanimous French Episcopate.
Now to-day it is known, from evidence which must
be admitted, that the declaration was drafted in
Rome and published without securing the assent
of all whose names it bears. It would be cruel and
improper to add more. (35)

Another fault, moreover, I should point out.
which, without being a prophet, can be as readily
foreseen as the impertinences of a hardheaded
child.

French clericals always interpret awry the kind-
nesses shown them. Incapable of wishing liberty,
cordially and sincerely, to those who think not as
themselves, they judge other people by their own
standards. As soon as any respect is shown to
their ideas or any liberty granted to them, they

AN OPEN LETTER

fancy either insincerity or some mephistophelian ^
scheme, or else they are needed or feared. They
dream they are masters and power will again be
in their hands.

Such a frame of mind will once again produce
its mental fruits. The very liberal answers given
by a very large number of municipalities to the
document known as the " Declaration of the
Bishops " at once turned their heads. Even now
(end of February, 1907) we hear of the referen-
dum, of the plebiscite, of the communes in favor
of the Church against the Government, The As-
sumptionists, who purposely throw out these no-
tices in the press, stand ready to influence the
opinion of the whole world; perfectly well they
know to what they must stick ; they, too, are
aware, thoroughly so, that sections, largely Prot-
estant or radical-socialistic, will leave the place of
worship to the Cures. At the same time, they re-
gard themselves apt in swelling their tones and i:
imputing to liberalism and its deeds a meaning and j
a trend diametrically the opposite to that intended. J
So often and so well will they declare that these J
municipal acts constitute a protest against the]
Government's policy that they will force the cora-T
munes to reconsider their first intentions.

Finally, what they desire above all is the day |
ywhen, driving the municipalities and the Govern- ,
ment beyond patience, they will, by their schem-i
ings, force the closing of some churches, so thatl
with some show of reason they may cry: Persecu-f^
tion, In France their complaints are seldom taken I

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

69

seriously, but these great patriots hope that the
tide of general reprobation wilt become strong
enough to wipe out a detested government.

Behold, Your Eminence, what measures of po-
litical jobbery strangers endorse, very innocently,
in fact, who, in the goodness of their hearts, rush
too fast to the help of sufferers, whose heart break-
ing cries have come to their ears.

If the campaign so merrily carried on in the
press against lay France should continue, it would
not in the least change facts, so clear of themselves.
But indeliberate movements of public opinion,
above all in a land like yours, whose esteem is
specially dear to France, would prove infinitely
hurtful to Catholicism. For. in the long run, the
responsibility would fall upon the Holy See, which
follows these movements so attentively and so
wistfully. The success of this Anti-French agita-
tion would prove one thing only, viz. : that
Catholicism, instead of being as its name indicates,
a bond of sympathy between nations, excels, on the
contrary, in creating among them misunderstand-
ings and deplorable divisions. (36)

Far off, indeed, is the day when our sister, Italy,
thought that we were going to re-establish St.
Peter's throne. More recently, the entente cordiale
with England has found its opponents only among
Catholics, whence with a sad bravery issued words
which should have put to shame those who used
them, if it were not clear to all that those knight-
errants of French honor are irresponsible marion-
lettes.

ro

AN OPEN LETTER

The sentiment, Your Eminence, which has led^
me to take pen in hand is without doubt the wish
that my country be not despised and Judged
wrongly. Another reason, also — and perhaps
stronger — is the love of that venerable Mother
^Church, who owes so much to France and to which
France owes so much. I believe in her transforma-
tion, her reformation, her getting into line, because
I believe in her life. Would that the error of
them who confound the letter with the spirit
standing still with truth, not lead her to desire the
position of idols upraised in niches, whence the
flow of humanity is looked down upon. That may
be an apotheosis ; it is also death.

Alongside the Catholics, of whom I have just J
spoken, there are others to whom we turn with a '
joyous confidence. For they love their times and
their country, not with a supernatural, theological
. love, but as men after a human fashion. They have
the faith, a faith that need not call an adversary
a liar or a possessed. They dream not of killing,
but of converting.

They accept Catholic tradition that is as the
Truth and the Life, for they bring themselves to
realize the words of St. Augustine, which the .
Church makes use of in the office of Holy Thura
day, at the twilight of the day when our thought!
turn to the Upper Room and Gethsemane, hailinj^
and preparing for a Communion, of which th(ri
Cenacle was only the promise and the prophecyd
" The most of the time when you fancy you ari

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

r hating an enemy, you hate a brother and know it
not." (S7)
If it were given you to see at first hand what
is going on in France, you would need little time.
Your Eminence, to perceive that our Democracy
is entirely the opposite of being materialistic or
self-satisfied. If to believe that truth is more in''
the future than in the past, that it continues and
will still continue to be sought after, that it is not
found once and for all (28), that every grain of
it, which our ancestors discovered, increases the
duty of further research, if all these sentiments
make up a dangerous error, then France is lost.

I But if, on the other hand, such dreams, such
aspirations from the soul even of the Faith, if it
were the trend towards such sentiments that made
the Law and the Prophets the forerunners of the
Gospel; if it is their presence in the teaching of
Jesus, which has made it not the truth of one age
and one land but a force, the starting point of un-
ending progress and expansion, then must we con-
clude that France in spite of all her faults is on
the right way. And much will be forgiven her be-
cause she hath loved much.

I cannot, however, end this letter, already too
long, without saying a word upon a question
which I have neither the skill nor the mission to
put before you, but which as I know is deep in
the hearts of some French bishops, and of those of
the clergy, whose ideas are not enclosed with the
lines so stiffly laid down by the daily press. (39)

W^jS'A

n

AN OPEN LETTER

If during these past months no authorized Call
olic voice dare approach it publicly, it is really,
I can assure you, because men dreaded to speak
too feelingly and because also it was thought that
any step on the part of the clergy of France might
compromise the Holy See. It is the question of
Episcopal nominations. Your voice, Your Emi-
nence, is among those which have the right to
make themselves heard. More than once you have
not failed and we know that only lately you had
the courage to undertake the cause of justice
against the Canadian Episcopate and had the gi
fortune to gain your point.*

Why would you not explain to the Supreme Au-
thority the desire of French Catholics to see fixed
the way of electing bishops?

Since the Supreme Pontiff, now presiding over
the destinies of the Church, is moved by a special
love for them, he could hardly show it better than
in restoring the rules of Canon Law. And as you
are so convinced that what is needful for the Cath-
olics of France is liberty, like to that in the United
States, will you then exert your influence to the
end that the Holy See also enters into these views
and grant to the Eldest Daughter of the Church
not unusual privileges, but purely and simply the
rights conceded to the Catholics of the Ni
World?

Pardon me. Your Eminence, for anything in thisS

e to Cardinal Gibbonl' dcteoM of the Knigl

1

lly,^*

itice ^^

:ood^H

Au-^H

m

TO CARDINAL GIBBONS

r letter that may be contrary to forms, which in my
ignorance I may have broken, I comfort myself
a little in thinking that the illustrious Cardinal
whom I ventured to address has himself in this
point more than one fault upon his conscience.
For he has been seen to arrive at the Vatican in a
turnout which, if truly apostolic, did not fail,
nevertheless, to cause a little excitement among
the honorable officials of the Sacred Palace, so
tenacious of olden customs. (30)

Deign to accept, Your Eminence, the homage of
my most respectful sentiments.

Paul Sabatibr.

NOTES OF THE AUTHOR

76

NOTES.

1 (page 35), A/>rh la Separation, by Count
d'Haussonville, of the French Academy and the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. 13mo.
94 pp. Paris, 1906.

3 (page 35). For example, cf.. La Virile Fran-
qaise, February 1st, 1906, a paper on " The Eternal
Enemy."

3 (page 36). La Rewe Calkolique des Eglises,
February, 1907, makes it a duty to point out " this
dictatorship of religion by laymen without author-
ity or fitness, defending the Church against laicism,
making themselves masters of orthodoxy, jealously
monopolizing the interests of religion and almost
succeeding in making their journalism regarded as
the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

4 (page 39). To have an exact notion of this
speech, the Journal OiHciel, of January 16th, which
published it in extenso, should be read. Some
clerical journals kept completely silent about it;
others, v. g., Le Gaulois, were bold enough to boast
of their silence.

K 5 (page 40). Cf., Les Etudes, October 6th, 1906,

^M p. 37. This is a well-known review of the Jesuits.
^1 6 (P^g^ 40)- ^o Dicouverte du Vieux Monde par

^1 wn etudiant de Chicago, 12mo, pp. 320, 1906. This
^H book of the Abbe Klein is not, in fact, the only
^H one wherein can be found discreet and sensible

78

AN OPEN LETTER

views on the present crisis. There still remain a
few priests in France who understand well enough
their environment to recognize the straightfor-
wardness and good will of the men in the opposi-
tion. Among the publications on the Separation,
there is another — the work of a priest also — short,
shaq), full of sincerity, manliness, and faith, worthy
of being placed alongside of the illuminating
speeches of M. Briand. I refer to the pamphlet
PoUtiqtie religieuse et Separation, by the Abbe Hera-
mer, of the Diocese of Paris, 13nio, pp. 88, Paris,
1905.

7 (page 44). On Political Catholicism, Demain,
November 3, 1905, p. 4.

8 (page 47). Is it not strange that the most de-
termined enemies of the Government saw not all
these faults of the law? They decried it as tyran-
nical and detestable, but as a whole in a vague,
general way, because of its origin. They feared
lest the Holy See might finally accept it, and
they cared not to burn their bridges behind them.
A tolerari posse was regarded as so certain, that on
all sides under Episcopal direction and approba-
tion. Catholic Jurists studied beforehand the ques-
tions which its application might raise, e. g,. Ex-
pose de la Situation legale de fEglise Catholique en
France d'apris la loi du ir dkembre, 1905 (Its prop-
erties, its clergy, its worship), by L. Jenouvrier,
former President of the Bar Association
Rennes ; Cardinal Laboure, Archbishop of Rennes,
under date December 12th, 1905, wrote a letter ol
introduction to it. This was the time when most

I

NOTES OF THE AUTHOR

zealous clericals were explaining to good people
that the law was radically bad, but that the Pope,
by virtue of his apostolic office and in the fulness
of his power (plenitudo potestaHs) could heal it
radically [sanare in radice]. Such zealots would
be paid by Protestant controversialists not to ex-
plain Infallibility more stupidly. For them, it lies
not in the power which the Pope enjoys of de-
fining, i. e., of declaring existing facts; it would
rather imply a kind of creative power. Simple
folks will find it hard to understand how a Pope,
sweet and honest, made not over the law that
healing sign of the Cross which it was in his
power to do.

9 (page 47). M, Briand himself, as reporter of
the Commission, declares that the regular consti-
tution of the associations for public worship would
require a priest in communion with a bishop, who
himself should be in communion with the Pope.
The strong majority who voted for §4 embraced
all the Catholic deputies of the Chamber. (Translator's
italics.)

10 (page 48). Appeal of a group of French Cath-
olics to Pope Pius X. 32 pp. Nourry, Paris, 1906.

11 (page 48). In taking these steps the Prelates
thought they were in perfect accord with the in-
structions of Pius X, who, in the Bull Graz'issimo,
August 10th, 1906, instructed the bishops to make
use of all the means known to the Law in order to
arrange and organize religious worships. So ex-
plained to his clergy Cardinal Lecot, who added:
This declaration being a mere official formality

80

SN OPE

TER

implies neither the renouncing of any right nor
the interference of any outside influence on the
exercise of worship, we see no reason of impor-
tance to keep us from signing it.

13 (page 48), The steps taken by these prelates
would have been quickly followed by the other
bishops and would have made for peace. To hold
that Pius X wanted war absolutely would be to lay
at his door a directness of intention against which
he would be in the right to protest. But what is
certain is that he sought not a peace — the outflow
of the natural trend of our institutions.

13 (page 49). Hateful press * * * and we
must add lying. If it is hard for daily newspapers
to shun a number of errors, owing to the swiftness
of information, and if consequently a large indul-
gence in this regard is due them, this, however, can-
not be granted when it is question of deliberate
falsehoods renewed day by day and which it is not
possible in spite of the most striking proofs to
have withdrawn. But these falsehoods being, if
the expression is permissible, the weapons of their
politics, they are become slaves to such which
they never can shake off. I shall quote only two,
to maintain which no fact can be alleged and yet
accepted are they by certain organs as truths not
needed to be proven. The first is that the law of
Separation is the result of Protestant efforts ; the
second, that the Government would desire to favor
foolish schismatic attempts.

14 (page 53). Men, even of large and demo-
cratic ideas, like the Abbe Naudet, were convinced'

I

L

NOTES OF THE AUTHOR 81

that the freedom of Episcopal nominations would
be impaired.

" It is known already," he said in La lusiiee Soeiale,

November 11th, 1906, " that our rulers will not accept the
direct and sole nominations of the Pope. Moreover, no
one is ignorant what sense the word 'separation' has
in the mouths of these people. French law permits not
a citizen to accept a function or even a decoration from
a foreign ruler without official authorization. We may
feel sure that the government, be it what it may, will not
permit to lie idle this weapon very dangerous for us.
It can even go so far as to make impossible the use of
the Episcopal office,"

These lines are noteworthy. They prove how
little among the clergy a frank, loyal, liberal trial
of Separation could be expected. But since at no
time has the Government searched for any such
weapon in its Law Codes, perhaps it would be fair
to recognize this and be grateful for it.

Again not only the clerical journals as a rule
have given no thought to apologizing, but their
tremendous blunders as to the Government's aims
have taught them nothing, and day by day they
begin to impute to it the darkest designs. Such
steady relapses make the more praiseworthy the
recent words of the Abbe Naudct : " The conduct
and words of M. Briand are those of a man de-
sirous of peace, peace in liberty " (Justice Soeiale,
February 23d, 1907), and the stand of the Abbe
Darby, who in his Vie Catholique gave in full the
speech of Minister of Public Worship (cf. specially
the issue of November 17th, 1906). Should not.

83 AN OPEN LETTER

we trust, these views of priests long known to the
Archbishop of Baltimore, and in whose works he ]
is interested, have led him to desire to form a per-
sonal opinion upon the events in France, based 'j
solely upon authentic documents?

15 (page 54). Liberty, that is, on the part of the
State. The Holy See, however, took care not to
leave the French Episcopate to their own initia-
tive ; it fixed rigorously the order of the day and i
even reserved to itself the choice of the prelates ]
who would make up the chief commissions.

16 (page 65). This correctness and serenity cre-
ate ways so removed from those of the clericals
that they refuse to credit them and give out in
their journals the most grotesque statements, e. g. :
They announced seriously that the new bishops, on
their way back from Rome, would be held up at the
frontier. Their simple readers bubbled up with
anger against our abominable and tyrannical Gov-
ernment. When the bishops had all arrived safely
in their respective dioceses without any let or hin-
drance to the ovations gotten up in their honor,
those people not even thought how atrociously
they had been deceived by their pious journals.
Not only the loyalty of the Government in this
matter was not recognized, but calumny was the
only thanks.

17 (page 55). Finally, the persistent opponents of I
separation very loyally perceived that to make use. J
of part of the law would render them its accomplices, i
They desired then that Catholics would look upon 1
it as not existing, at least in this sense that they I

I

L

NOTES OF THE AUTHOR 83

would not use the rights conferred by it and would
keep from profiting from the advantages which it
might bring to them, (cf. Count d'HaussonviUe :
Aprh la Separation, p. SO.)

18 (page 55). The full text of this address was
given in I'Osservatore Romano, August 14th, 1906,
A Catholic journal, which as a rule adopts a less
oratorical tone, could say :

"This meeting in Paris is the graadest deed in our
history since the Concordat. It marks the end of a

system: the anarchy and powerlessness of a Church
under the leading strings of the State. It is a resurrec-
tion to life with liberty. Gratefully we salute it as the
first step in that future of progress, of peace, and of
order, for which we labor and which, in spite of the
unhappy trials of the present hour, will dawn upon our
country finally." iBulUtin de la Semaine, June S, 19Q6,
Fads.)

Strangers, who wished to be posted upon the
religious questions in France, might subscribe to
it or to the excellent Demain, of Lyons. These two
weeklies, both strictly Catholic, have an intel-
lectual and moral standing which ranks them away
and beyond the mass of religious papers.

The few lines that I have taken from the Bulletin
de la Semaine announce all right the enthusiasm
with which those, whom I must term Catholics in
contradistinction to the Catholic clericals, accepted
the decisions of the first meeting of the bishops.
Naturally they could hardly look forward to the
strange lot that befell them at Rome.

19 (page 57). The text appeared in fe Figaro,

Wm LETTER

March 36th, 1906, and the next day in a large num-
ber of other papers.

30 (page 58). cf., for example, the article, Rome
et I'AcHon liberate in Verite frangais, August 15th,

21 (page Gl). At Christmastide, 1906, Mgr. An-
drieu, bishop of Marseilles, delivered in his cathe-
dral a discourse that has been scattered all over
France, and whose ending la Croix, January 9th,
1907, resumes thus: The principles of the Revolution
have ruined France; she will only become great,
strong, and happy by returning to the principles of
the Gospels.

33 (page 63). These expressions may seem se-
vere to the general public. But do they appear
unjust to those who know what sufferings can be
cloaked under the threats : To dismiss in disgrace,
to cast oul to starve?

Some clerical heads adopt methods which no
government would dare use. In the year of grace,
1906, Cardinal Ferrata, acting as prefect of the
Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, declared
that permission to say Mass can be given to Father
Tyrrell only when he pledges himself to write no
longer upon religious questions and to submit be-
forehand all his correspondence for the approbation
of a censor, named by the ordinary.

23 (page 65). Is it not a sign of the times, this
joining of the two terms. Free Thought and Re-
ligion, which many look upon as contradictions?
These last days in Paris, specially in the Latin

I
I

NOTES OF THE AUTHOR

Quarter, have been pasted up bills with the head-
line, " Movement of ReHgious Free Thought."
Three contradictory conferences of M. J. J. Kas-
par have been presided over in turn by MM. Paul
Guieysse and de Pressense, members of Parlia-
ment, and M. Gabriel Seailles, Professor at the
Sorbonne.

34 {page 66). Herelspeakonlyof thedailypress.
Thanks to Demain and the Bulletin de la Sematne,
quoted above, the weekly press is already in touch
with the new spirit, which, — we may add, — is tri-
umphant in the reviews. Doubtlessly these last
are but partially imbued with it, but almost all
make a good impression willing-nilling. Surely the
difference between the daily and monthly press is
very evident. For the writings in the daily press
a strong conviction answers, while articles of
greater pretensions in a review compel their au-
thors to delve deep into questions, to weigh the
opposing views and to search out the sources. It
is an intelligent, lively, and, above all, expanding
work.

Twenty years ago, French Catholicism had noth-
ing like the publications of to-day, e.g., Le Bulletin
de I'Institut catholique de Toulouse, Revue d'Histoire el
de Litter ature, Annales de Pkilosophie chretienne.
Revue du Clerge frangais. Revue Biblique, Quinsaine,
Revue Catholique des Eglises. All these magazines —
and the list might be made much longer — are per-
fectly orthodox. That which, however, marks
them ofT from their predecessors or rivals is the de-

AN OPEN LETTER

sire to accomplish apostolic work in intellectual
centres. The men who direct them realize the
day upon which the Church will no longer convert
the savages she will not have lost all her useful-
ness though she may run the risk of becoming
an article of export to the colonies.

25 (page 67). Well, I know that these revela-
tions have been denied ; it is but right to ask what
notion of honesty do these people form to them-
selves, who cast noisily in one's face a denial, only
to yield a moment later in detail everything they
had defended as a whole beforehand.

Unable to probe to the bottom this matter here,
it will be enough to say to those for whom the
word of truth has an exact meaning that La Croix
opened its issue of January 30th, 1907, with these
words :

We have official announcement of a docu-
ment OF CAPITAL IMPORTANCE.

It then gave the document known as: Decla-
ration OF THE Bishops of France, followed
by the signatures of 87 Prelates. The same
day, L'Univers published the same document.
Now, we dare affirm that neither the staff of these
journals nor any one else in the world has seen
the original with the names of the bishops affixed
to it.

Moreover, one of the leading clerical papers — I
note this with pleasure — had the frankness to state
that the text published by I'Osservatore Romano,
January 31st, 1907, differed in two points of

J